ABC7 News Sports Anchor Larry Beil passionately breaks down everything you need to know about the collapse of the Pac-12. abc7ne.ws/3YkDVPm #sports #pac12 #big10 #big12 #football #college #collegefootball #collegesports #abc7news
That's the only way they can change it in the shadows of their greed, their control is eventually detrimental to the whole system, simply because of the way the system is ran
A conference that's been around for over 100 years is literally going away overnight. It's been hard to keep up with what's happening but the way Larry put it made me understand what's actually going on.
Not from PAC-12 territory so had no idea ESPN offerred to run the PAC-12 network for them and were turned down. Now I understand why they couldn't get a deal with Fox and ESPN.
You could tell part of him wanted to punch a hole in the screen, another part wanted to cry. Not quite the same as the rage me and my fellow Bruins fans felt last year, but certainly some similarities.
Ironic, seeing how the Big 12 changes partners like a squaredance. It wasn't that long ago Nebraska went to the Big 10 to whither in obscurity. Colorado went west, Mizzou southeast, Four Texas schools joined, then two departed soon after.
Very well said. As a USC season ticket holder, it's very sad seeing long standing traditions and rivalries come to an end. That's what made college football great over the NFL.
Only one thing that Larry Beil left out. Back in 2011, Then-Pac 12 conference commissioner Larry Scott had a chance to start a "super conference" by attracting Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. They failed to recognize the power of the UT and OU brands while being greedy and incompetent. Then they tried to cover their mismanagement by instead bringing on Utah and Colorado. Larry Beil has always been (and still is) on point. A lot of us feel your frustration. This is what greed and arrogance lead to; ineptitude and, in this case, extinction.
@@David-si8vq They knew about the Texas Network. That was the deal breaker. Texas was unwilling to share their money from it, but wanted an equal cut of the Pac 10 (12) TV deal. That's Texas. We in the Big 12 have put up with their crap for years. They kept the conference alive, but at the same time, they took it over and got their way on everything. The consolation is that for all of their wealth, they couldn't translate it it to domination. They couldn't spend their way to championships. The Texas Network was the deal-breaker. The Pac 10 refused to budge and the deal fell through. My alma matter was going to get left out in the cold (Mountain West) because they were not invited to the Pac 10. Now Texas is gone and they are the SEC's problem. But instead of killing the Big 12, we got the best possible outcome: long term stability, lots of money, and no more Texas. But the Pac 10 learned: don't mess with Texas. If they let Texas have their way, they would have got Texas, A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State, along with Colorado. Utah would have been left out in the cold. The Pac 16 would be alive today and they would have the big TV deal. So as a fan of one of the have nots in the Big XII (even though we are the champs), I'm thankful for Pac 12 arrogance, greed, and ignorance. It saved my team. But that is the story Larry should have mentioned: that one decision -- to not let Texas have their way -- is why they are where they are today.
@@danielorr9910nothing about being woke.. BYU would be a nightmare for scheduling due to their No-Sunday policy.. Colorado and Utah are more attractive than BYU
Just slight clarification.. the deal was for the lot of six schools.. The conferences would have split with the Original Pac 8 and the Arizona schools joining the other 6 schools for a mountain division.. the Pac16 would have been amazing.. Larry Scott is an idiot
It’s heartbreaking man. Watching traditions, rivalries, whole conferences…all the things that made college football what it was…just dissolve like this is heartbreaking
It’s all good now, they’re in a much better conference and I think the acc should join the big ten too. The only conferences thriving is the big ten and sec.
@erikbartlam: couldn’t agree more. Not only is the PAC12 over after 100 plus years….but the B10 is also going to trash its own traditions going after the almighty dollar. Disgusting.
Larry, no apologies necessary. You're emotionally invested and your passionate response to the situation is justified. I shared this link with several friends who were wondering how this could happen. Succinct and spot-on. Great work.
The whole time she kept interrupting, I'm yelling out loud (to nobody) "Who is this woman and why is she here, and why does she keep interrupting Larry Biel who knows his shit and she knows nothing about college sports?"
@@bruhbruhhh6592The future is two megaconferences. The b12 will not sustain because none of their remaining schools have any sustained football success. The brands are subpar. Having 16 or more schools works when you have an Ohio State, Michigan, USC, Texas, Georgia, or Bama in the conference. Otherwise, you’d be just as overextended as the old 16-school WAC.
This breaks my heart. I grew up with Pac-10 & Pac-12 sports, first as a Cal fan growing up in Oakland, and then going to college at UCLA. It's despicable knowing that mismanagement will destroy a once great conference. RIP Pac-12. 😢
Mr. Beil, This is perhaps the most accurate yet succinct explanation of the entire PAC demise I have heard. I have watched this playout as an alum of a BIG XII school, and it always seemed to me that the PAC was apathetic, slow to act and react to the changing dynamics surrounding college football and the media markets. Nobody disputes that the member institutions of the PAC are fantastic academicians, but it seemed as though they have/had zero real-world business acuity. Quite frankly, many of us not in the PAC or "PAC Footprint" have seen this brewing for a little over a year, and were just labeled as "12-Anons" by many PAC fans as well as numerous professional sports reporters that cover the PAC. Your frustration at the self-inflicted wounds that ended with the PAC's demise is very apparent, but the direct and candid way you have summarized things is refreshing. I hope people watching will at least learn a valuable life lesson.
It's a good thing for the Big 12 that the PAC's Commissioner wasn't good at his job, because after OU and TX announced they were leaving, the B12 was on shaky ground. The PAC could have easily swooped up four teams like Kansas, Texas Tech ect.
@@deerobinson557seriously which makes this all more self inflicted. The Pac essentially merged with the Big 12 yesterday and they could have did this a year ago but their hubris told them that they were better than everybody and now the conference is dead
Utah fan here. I feel this guy completely. I loved the pac. I really did. I was so excited when Utah was invited 10 years ago. And now, it’s gone… and the big 12 is a new destination that awaits. Farewell, pac 12. I loved being a fan of a team in this conference
Yes, this sucks for the Beavs and Cougs. The way out of this is tough but doable. Go to the MWC, kick the crap out of everybody, and wait for the inevitable (IMO) reorganization of FB and BB into a national format with a commissioner where the money isn't based on conference TV deals but National contracts with everyone getting a fair piece of the pie as long as they're competitive.
I feel for you man. Just gotta run whatever conference you end up in. I don't think the PAC 12 can survive because you'd need to add 4 members and the mwc as well as the AAC members have a pretty hefty exit fee so I doubt they'll pay that to join a very depleted PAC 12 with no tv deal. So your best bet is to lose the autonomy 5 status and merge with the mwc
I’m a Coug fan in SE Washington, but this guy expresses my exact sentiments in ways I can’t. This is a nightmare, and not just for the schools left out in the cold. A century of tradition, rivalries, history, sentiment, just thrown out with the bath water, and all in the name of money. It makes me sick! Best to you, Cal, Stanford, OSU, and Wazzu.
Fellow Coug and neighbor here, well put. We all saw it coming. Over a decade now we haven’t been able to watch PAC-12 games and finally the sinking ship has sunk.
My brother is a Coug, sister a Husky, and I'm a Golden Bear. I think Wazzu may be more screwed than anyone, and I feel for you guys. Can the Governor step in? That's what happened in Virginia...
Husky alumni here, and it makes me sick that this is happening. I'm sure they'll schedule the Apple Cup still, but loses all meaning and removes the pleasure of ruining the other's season as we have seen in the past. I actually hope both Oregon State and Washington State will be allowed to join alongside Oregon and Washington. Gonna miss playing you filthy pussycats! (Said with love!)
let’s build a new conference.. go back to apple east to west with ecu, tulane, smu, usf, sdsu, fresno, csu, boise, osu, wsu, stanford, cal.. pairings: tulane/smu, usf/ecu, boise/wazzu, sdsu/csu, fresno/beavs, stanford/cal
OMG. The ditzy news reader referred to Cal as Cal State. In her home market. Perfect example of Bay area ignorance and apathy regarding College athletics. To say that NoCal residents don't care is an understatement. If they don't want to play big boy sports, give it up and focus on Olympic sports like archery and kayaking.
Came here to say the same thing. As a Big 10 alum, I personally don’t want to see Stanford and Cal in our conference. The Bay Area doesn’t care about athletics which is fine but most schools in the Big 10 care deeply (minus Rutgers and Maryland).
Was it right after that when he said they don't care and then expanded on his point saying they're great academic schools but football is just not their thing. Is the lady American? I'm asking because I'm an international fan and to many of us Cal and Cal State or Michigan and Michigan State sound like the same university. I don't even know if Cal State exists to be honest. I could always look it up, and so could the lady have looked it up before she had this conversation. I follow a non-revenue Olympic sport btw.
@@dronesclubhighjinks There are 2 public university systems in California - University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU). UC schools are research universities (eg. UC Berkeley, UCLA) and CSU schools are historically teaching universities (eg. SDSU, CSULB). UC snobs do not like to be associated with CSU. One of the reasons why UCB (it’s Board of Regents) doesn’t want to be in the same conference as Fresno State and San Diego State. So a Bay Area newscaster to not know to never call Berkeley a Cal State school is 😂
@@DailyRants89 So no ratings, no pay, huh? This is supposed to be college athletics, where we teach sportsmanship, team play, courage, preparation and perseverance on a level playing field, athletics being an adjunct activity to the educational mission of the schools. Hell, the NFL, NBA and MLB all share TV revenues equally among all teams and they're strictly a for-profit enterprise. How is this acceptable for college sports?
@@dronesclubhighjinks Many universities have a state university (University of name of state) and also what started off as an agriculture, land grant school (state name State). For example, Texas has the University of Texas in Austin and Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College (later university) or Texas A&M in College Station. UT was for the lawyers, businessmen, doctors, petroleum engineers, liberal arts majors; A&M was for those going into agriculture, forestry, mechanical and civil engineering, veterinary medicine. Both have expanded their offerings, but those were their original foci. But it doesn't matter, usual one (e.g. Arkansas, Missouri, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Arizona) or the other (Penn State, Ohio State, Louisiana State) ends up being the power in sports in the state. The rivalries can border on hatred.
Maybe we won’t have games going after midnight anymore. West coast has always dictated super late start times. Maybe we’ll actually see some of these games start earlier in the evening since it’s getting more ET/CT leaning.
I feel bad that Harbaugh owned us two years in a row now, and will likely do so again this November! Day needs to get his head out of his and win the line of scrimmage! OSU is too soft under Day. Scoreboard. Makes me sick.
Facts!!! The Rose Bowl game isn't the same without the PAC and Big 10 playing each other. Plus conferences should be culturally made. Not made through vanity and greed.
@@khawmtiti4460 not at all. Pac 12 doesnt give a shit about football and hasnt for a while. Fresno St has better fans than a majority of Pac 12 schools
@@khawmtiti4460Fresno is 4-0 against UCLA in their own building over the last 20 years. They boat raced Washington State last year in the LA Bowl and beat Arizona State in the Las Vegas Bowl back in 2018.
She almost was mocking him unintentionally and he was spot on. Really micro-ism of the big issue and how this fell apart for the PAC12. So many underestimate the importance the athletics brings to a university in both money and exposure that brings students to your campus because they see your logos and sports on TV their whole childhood and they want to be a part of that even though they are going to school to be a doctor, engineer, nurse, ect. She had no idea how this will affect those universities and so many people on so many levels.
Athletics brings importance to less prestigious universities. Stanford and Berkeley aren’t hurting for applicants. Of course, living in the Bay Area for a couple years some decades ago, even then the sports media barely had time for college athletics. And it’s not the media’s fault… the local sports media is following what’s popular. That’s the pros. I could blame the athletic departments for not having Oregon’s innovation, but that’s very hard to achieve.
As a Washington State Cougar fan, THANKS ALOT LARRY SCOTT!!!!! Your replacement as Pacific 12 Conference Commissioner had his hands tied and could not get anything fixed with the Pac 12. The damages to the TV deals were done by Larry Scott himself as former Pac 12 Commissioner. Thank You Larry Beil ( ABC7)for posting this on RU-vid. Now the inevitable in my opinion- Washington State will become a Mid Major in college sports- Mountain West Conference , Western Athlectic Conference or West Coast Conference? RIP PACIFIC 12 CONFERENCE
Don't apologize, Larry. I love every word you said. I'm an OU fan from the middle of the country, but his passion for his teams and tradition speaks everyone who loves college football right now.
Can't agree more. I also am a lifetime Sooner and Big 8/Big 12 fan. While a small and petty part of me cannot help but feel a little smug about how the narrative & tables have turned making the "flyover schools" of the Big 12 a savior for the three Pac 12 schools (Coach Prime and their previous connection to the Big 8/Big 12 makes Colorado a unique case), I genuinely feel terrible for the Pac 12 conference fans and the fans of TRADITIONAL college football throughout the country. Ultimately, though, in our capitalist, competition-driven society one truism cannot be ignored: Adapt or die.
“Cal-State coach” THAT! That right there is the problem. Cal has gone from the program that produced Aaron Rodgers and Marshawn Lynch to being referred to as “Cal-State” on a major network local TV station. I know schools like to say there is more to college athletics than football and basketball and “what about the Olympic sports?” The point is the Olympics are every four years and unless you are a diehard fanatic, these sports don’t matter to a university’s bottom line or fans. Football and basketball put butts in seats and drive revenue. If Stanford and Cal and their fans refuse to live by this reality, they become the old couple in the bed with the room flooding in Titanic. It’s sad, but true.
The reference to Wilcox as the "Cal State" coach is more a reflection of an ignorant journalist than a diminishing prominence of Cal as a university. But point taken that some sports fans will start confusing Cal to other schools as Cal sports become less prominent.
Great analysis Larry. Very informative. The two biggest mistakes the PAC made was not raiding the Big 12 when they had multiple chances and allowing the Big 12 to get a new TV deal first.
Great analysis…I feel Larry Beil’s frustration here. This guy hits every nerve that fans of the Pac12 are feeling. I wish for Stanford and Cal to join the Big10 and Oregon St and Washington St to join the Big12. I think it’s fitting for these teams. Damn I’m gonna miss Pac12 football.
Thats not a given because the ACC is in the same trouble the PAC-12 is in and the Big 10 and Big 12 is looking to poach schools like UNC, Duke, Clemson, Virginia, Florida State, Miami, etc.
Sadly, while the Big 10 may have an eye on Cal and Stanford at some point, I don’t think the Big 12 is interested in the Beavs or the Cougs. The best hope for the PAC-4 is a merger of some sort with the Mountain West. 😢🏈
The Big 12 schools knew this could happen and were proactive about it, starting with hiring a commissioner that came from the TV industry. The PAC 12 thought it could never happen to them.
If only the PAC12 commissioners had a fifth of his passion for the conference and the sport instead of just cashing checks and purchasing Apple & Tesla stock online.
Larry is so real for getting pissed off though. The NCAA has never been about students it’s always been about the money. It makes no sense that UCLA, USC Oregon fans etc, have to spend probably thousands of dollars to fly to the Midwest to cheer on their team. Conferences are nothing now
As an Arizona State fan, while I'm glad for the Sun Devils to be part of the Big12 I do feel for the Pac remaining schools. I'm hoping these great, storied institutions find a place that best suits them (whether it be within the conference or independent)!
I agree. While I'm a big ten fan and a michigan fan, the likes of any team out west joining the conference makes absolutely no sense at all except for a money perspective. That's all that's going on in college football right now. I wasn't a fan when Nebraska joined, and really hated the additions of Maryland and Rutgers. Watching a michigan away game at Rutgers or Maryland is extremely boring. What's going to happen is we will have 2 major conferences(sec and big10) and then a bunch of nobodies and then the little guys like Mac conf and sun belt at the bottom. Florida, Miami, notre dame, clemson will all have to figure out whether the sec or big 10 is their home. Then the rest will just be banding together for 2nd rate conferences.
It all started in 2011 when Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State asked to join the Pac 12 and the arrogance of the conference turned them down.
As a Sooner fan and alum, I’m disappointed that OU didn’t stay in the Big XII. Now the conference is getting really interesting and represents the core of the heartland: Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, West Virginia and Florida.
Looking forward to Texas A&M and Texas playing every year. Don't follow either one of them but when they start playing each other again will start. Aggie stadium and although in crappy Austin, Texas will fill it up too.
The anchor can't name the school in the immediate viewing area. It's just further proof of the point Larry made. Casuals don't even know who's in the conference that's dying and people wonder why.
As a Michigan fan who's just watching all this from afar, it's really heartbreaking to watch all this history come apart. I appreciate Larry's passion because really drives home how important this is to the football fans on the west coast, particularly fans of the teams left on the outside looking in. I really hope the Big 10 either extends an offer to Stanford and Cal to join or at the very least some kind of scheduling agreement if those schools go independent.
Feel bad for Oregon St. they are on the come up and just got done renovating half their stadium - lady went their so they were my Pac12 team As a Big10 guy and Mich fan. I love the additions. Just need ND to wake up and NC to get out of the ACC prenup somehow
@@dr.lawrencel.bradford9762they'd have to revoke the scholarships of every athlete they have in all sports to join the ivy League but it is likely the move the university makes. I mean it is what is best for the university as a whole sadly because without the PAC they won't get as much endowment money as they used to but they could up that by a lot by joining the ivy league. Oregon State and Washington State will have to face extreme budget cuts both for athletics and academics and join the mwc. It really is sad
Who would have thought that 10 years ago that Maryland, Rutgers, BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, Houston, and TCU would have more to offer an 18 year old athlete than Cal, Stanford, Oregon State, and Washington State?
Are you serious. You should rethink that. Everywhere you named except BYU are major cities and not college towns. They’ve always had more to offer but the perception of most schools made it appear they were better programs and colleges. Houston, TCU, Cincinnati and UCF can recruit their own city and field a Competitive D1 team. Can Cal, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington State do the same? Top recruits and top TV markets.
@@lecurymccray5804well cal and Stanford could do that theoretically but they get hard out recruited by everyone. Even Oklahoma was recruiting better California players than them
@@lecurymccray5804Washington state has no incentives. Pullman is in the middle of nowhere and hour drive outside Spokane. This is why Eastern Washington University football and Gonzaga are far more successful than WSU. They are actually near the population that wants to watch. WSU has been doomed for a long long time.
@@IEUNITED1906And if we watched more of those sports on P12N, if the ratings grew tenfold, that might have mattered. Football is 85% of the income. Basketball (both sexes if I understand correctly) is close to 15%. The compensation for winning at water polo, golf, tennis, and sailing isn’t much, unfortunately.
@rowdyjr2318 I agree. The Colorado administration definitely were going for a splashy big name hire to make them more appealing than just on Saturdays in the fall. Take away Coach Prime, and Colorado is just as irrelevant as Oregon St. and Washington St.. They don't even have a notable basketball program to lean on. But I believe the biggest factor in the Buffaloes coming back to the Big 12 is history and geography. Colorado spent the majority of its history with the Big 12 and its predecessors before 2011. Deion's hire was just a very good supporting reason IMO.
I went to university of Chicago. We had a national championship and dropped our football team. Standford doesn’t need sports. You are top 5 school in the world. Books not balls!
With NIL today, I doubt the Elways and Plunketts would go to Stanford. Also most athletics programs barely breaks even or makes a loss annually anyways.
Larry Scott set fire to the Pac 12 and GK tried to put the fire out with gasoline. ESPN offered the Pac 12 the same deal they gave the Big 12 and GK turned it down trying to play hardball to get a lot more. LS started the fire and GK finished burning down the Pac 12.
Like he is saying, Stanford and Cal could just de-emphasize sports, football like The Univ. of Chicago did before. Follow through on their actions really.
As someone who has grown up and lived in Big 10 country all my life, this is tragic. College Football has now entered the "money is the root of all evil phase which has created mega conferences that have absolutely destroyed the foundation and rich tradition of college football. Its ridiculous. The Pac 10 morphed into the Pac 12 ok. But the Big 10 became what is the actual Big 12 and now is morphng into the big 15-17 whatever 🤦.And what the actual Big 12 and SEC got like what 20 teams each. And Notre Dame just does whatever the hell they want.. Independent, Big East, etc🤷. Pretty soon we wont be seeing great rivalries like Michigan vs Ohio State, or UCLA vs USC. Its so out of hand. And the sad thing is we have an actual college football playoff system coming up. We could have played all the traditional bowls as playoff games all along. College football politics suck.
"They don't want to step down to a 'lesser' conference" *Mountain West Conference:* "Last time I checked, we still HAVE a conference" 😂 In all seriousness, seeing the PAC 8/10/12 dissolve seemingly overnight is heartbreaking as a CFB fan 😢 I hope OSU and Wazzu find their places, and Larry Beil was ON FIRE for this interview
My thought exactly! Over here at the MWC we still have a conference, so who's the "lesser" now?! Hopefully the shit doesn't keep rolling down hill. When things like this kick off my school (Utah State) usually gets caught on the outside looking in. Glad we have a good buyout agreement as that might keep us from imploding as well. I can envision a scenario where many of our "bigger" market schools in the MWC, band together and leave to form a new conference or a reformed PAC conference with the PAC leftovers and maybe others from the American. That seems unlikely right now given the high buyout to get out of the MWC, plus they wouldn't get much money for a TV deal as the PAC has already proven. If the PAC leftovers want to join the MWC I am sure we will welcome them with open arms but I would rather it is only Oregon State and Washington State as those seem to be a better fit for our league. Stanford and Cal would likely go it alone as independents and hope for a decent invite down the road, or form that mash up conference from the MWC and AAC once our grant of rights deal expires. They aren't going to get anywhere near the money they are used to but it would be better than joining the MWC. Stanford would do alright but Cal would struggle. Who knows, maybe the B12 will reconsider and throw them a lifeline but the elitist attitudes of those institutions coupled with the fan apathy make it so no conference wants to touch them. I just know that this whole thing isn't over because when there is ripple in the power conferences it becomes a tsunami through the G5, and this is way more than a ripple. The MWC grant of rights deal and lack of good TV money may be what is delaying the second half of the wave for now, but I hope I am wrong there.
I think he meant "lesser" as in P5 vs G5, as it stands Pac is still a P5... might not be a bad idea for MWC to join the 4 schools left in the PAC, so the PAC keeps its P5 status and all of a sudden all the schools in the MWC become P5s. They probably could just change the name to Pacific-Mountain West Conference.
@@biglan16 My estimation is that there is a chance that the PAC leftovers and the MWC merge, but there is very little chance that any of the other conferences would recognize it as a P5. None of that may matter anyway under the new playoff system. Although I am sure they will find a way to screw over the little guys in however many conference champs get an automatic berth. We'll see how any merger takes place but whatever way it does the MWC should ensure that all of its members get in on the deal.
OMG you mean Cal will be in the same conference as Fresno State and SDSU? To be in association with a CSU? The horror! Board of Regents must have to take out their smelling salts.
Oregon State and WSU are relegated to the Mt. West or WAC and I’m sorry 🥺😢 Stanford and Cal might need to see where other teams align…might need to go independent for a few years until spots open.
“Drop down a level….Fresno State…..”. This is so funny bc Stanford and Cal can barely (if) beat half the Mountain West teams. Honestly, that’s probably exactly their most accurate level now. I go to BSU games when I’m there and the entire damn city wears blue and orange on game days and the stadium explodes!! They would be lucky to be associated with that….
Very accurate assessment. The PAC-12 network, that actually no one could find and no one watched, set the demise of the league. Bad decisions and greed all around. Bad commissioners and University Presidents (Cal’s especially) who has no idea of what college athletics/football programs mean to financing the rest of the school’s athletic programs. It is an incredibly sad day and I am in mourning. PAC-12 RIP.
Larry Beil is awesome. Why didn't he become the Pac 12 Commissioner. The current and previous Pac 12 Commissioners are the definition of gross incompetence.
My suggestion for Cal and Stanford is they can afford to be a FBS Independent who is affiliated in other sports a la Notre Dame. The schools most harmed by this are in Corvallis and Pullman. Oregon State and Washington State are absolutely harmed by this and I'm not sure the Mountain West is all that ready to expand
Spot on, but the MWC would grab up OSU and WSU in a flash, only thing that would stop that is if they couldn't swallow their pride and want to join. Cal and Stanford can follow the BYU model and go independent in Football and WCC in everything else. Kind of ironic that BYU has shown them the path if you ask me. Not shedding any tears for Cal or Stanford as they are a big part of why the PAC ended up as it did, but I do feel bad for OSU and to a lessor degree WSU.
@@Josh1888USU Neither Stanford or Cal would be successful as independents. They were already cutting sports as Power5 schools and their TV money would greatly diminish as independents. BYU saw the folly of being independent and quickly jumped at the Big12 offer to join when they were given some leeway on the Sundays issue.
The thing about going independent though is that your school needs to have a strong following such as those at ND and BYU. I believe Stanford and Cal becoming independent over the years would result in similar product to UConn or UMass. Stanford and Cal alum and students treat athletics as a gimmick and the Bay Area does not have casual college fans. Minimal people watching on tv and going to games for most of them is hanging out while a game is going on. Gotta hope the Big10 comes knocking otherwise the move would be to just join the MWC. But as Larry said, it doesn’t have to be about sports. They are academic institutions first.
@@user-fm6wd8xy2o I agree, they probably wouldn't be successful as an independent. However, and just like BYU, it may just be the best option they have in the short term. Additionally, their elitism, hubris, and fan apathy are a poison pill for any conference that they are in. So there is a chance that the MWC doesn't want them and even if they did, any money they would get wouldn't pay their bills right now. Going independent would likely net them more money just because of the brands they are sitting on.
The PAC12 network was a disaster. I am in Louisiana and love college football. I attempted to get the PAC 12 network, but no providers in my area had it available. I was mad as I am a huge fan of a traditional conference. Had ESPN bought 50% of the network, the PAC 12 may be poaching other conferences. Larry Scott was a moron.
This started back with the bogus NCAA sanctions against USC in the early 2000s. USC was a juggernaut, and was elevating the entire West Coast (Cal, Oregon, Stanford) creating a truly fascinating bicoastal dynamic. But the horribly misguided sanctions against USC obliterated this resurgence and sucked all the air out of the room outside of the SEC. The Pac has just never been the same.
Its a sad day and I am a University of Oregon graduate saying that, this should have never happened, there were such a storm of missteps, slimy moves etc that had to all add up to a perfect storm for this tragedy to happen. My guess is within less than twenty years, probably quite a bit less, the whole thing will collapse back into regional alignments again much as Chip Kelly of UCLA said the other day, similar to the NFL, I love Chip he never says the PC thing to say, he just says the truth. I would hope all the schools that jump plus power players like Nike try to talk to the Big 12 and get Oregon State, Washington State, Stanford and Cal into the Big 12, the 4 schools that jumped to the Big 12 should have some influence as a group on the conference and Oregon and Washington could promise things like 3 game series with the conference with two out of three being at the Big 12 if they take the left behind schools and Lord knows Nike has influence, Phil Knight went to grad school at Stanford and has given them a bunch of money and he has given Oregon State a bunch as well since its his home state so I know he cares about those schools. If they end up in the Mountain West their budgets will get utterly slashed, its shocking how competitive Boise State is on their budget. I do not see the Big Ten as an option, I think they are done at 18, they do not want to split anymore money and they have tons of major TV Markets, the Big 12 on the other hand has Houston, Phoenix and DFW as their only big markets so they may still be interested plus you have a lot more potential pull with the Big 12.
I'm not even a particularly huge college sports fan, but it feels sacrilegious for the Pac 12 to disappear. I think Larry's comment at the end is probably the right one. Certain programs might as well just be the semi-pro league and forget about academics. For schools that do focus on academics first, maybe it's just best to create conferences for students who also play athletics. And as far as the Mountain West goes, I used to watch a lot of Colorado State football games back in the day. It's not the SEC by any means, but I saw a lot of entertaining games.
As a lifelong USC fan, I couldn't be happier joining the Big Ten. More exposure and competition in a league that values football. I lived in the Bay Area for 20 years, and I can attest to the fact that the Stanford and Cal alumni there do not care about football or athletics.
Let's start with the fact that most universities first objective is to be academic degree granting institutions. Secondly clearly you don't care. You're not the student-athletes having to travel all over the country now to provide entertainment. At this point we really need to take the student part out of the word student-athlete. These are young professionals who are providing entertainment and I do believe they should be paid & fully compensated for their services. NIL was the right way to go.
@@krumbleme2 The football players won't have a problem. They will be flying by private airplanes. The rest of the sports, however... As far as the most universities first objective to be degree granting institutions, that is long gone. They're businesses regardless of their "non-profit" status, especially state schools.
@krumbleme2 The average cost of tuition to attend USC is $60000 a year. I'm sure most of these student-athletes are willing to travel across the country to play a sport thats giving them the opportunity to attend that university on a sports scholarship. Forgive me, but lets keep it real, academics took a backseat the day college sports began being televised.
Thank you, Larry. It was frustrating watching my beloved "conference of champions" die a slow agonizing death since 2005. They reaped what they sowed is the correct assessment. I commiserate with you.
The student-athletes and fans at the four schools going to the Big10 are the big losers here. A 6,000 mile (there and back) road trip from Seattle to NJ?? Disgusting greed. It won't affect the football teams because they will charter, but the others?? Ugh.
What's crazy is I heard the Big 10 is considering playing Olympic sports in hub locations like Phoenix and Columbus. This will cut down on travel costs.
They have this invention called the airplane. It reduces the time of travel significantly. You may want to look it up. You're also talking about 1 game (and I doubt it will be every year) to go from Washington/Oregon/etc to Rutgers. More than likely there will be, at a minimum, an East division and a West division and probably the only time an E/W team would play would be for the championship and it'll probably be at some neutral site closer to the middle. So stop being overly dramatic. And your comment abut student-athletes being the big losers, you're joking, right? If I was a student-athlete, I would love the opportunity to see other parts of the country. The program is paying for trips, not you, so you get to experience life more vs being in the same region for 3-4 years.. Please.. And yes, it is greed, but either you adapt with the times or you don't. The mismanagement of the Pac-12 was horrible. Hell, they could have paid me half the salary they paid those commissioners and I could have run the conference into the ground just as effectively.
Larry crushed this analysis. I’m a Big Ten guy but if the B1G adds Stanford and Cal, they are fools. They don’t care about football, and that’s fine. They’re outstanding academic institutions and that’s their business model. But Fox, CBS, and NBC don’t pay to televise graduations and the broadcast money is what this is all about. The ones I feel bad for are Washington State and Oregon State. Their fans and teams deserve better, but they were let down by the conference they trusted. How good are those midwestern schools from the B12 looking two years after they tried to join the PAC12? Just ask Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and ASU. BETTER YET, ASK WSU and OSU!
Why not add San Diego State and UNLV? Both schools have new stadiums. Boise State maybe? That gets you to seven. How do you schedule non-revenue sports in these super conferences? Will every school have to purchase a couple of 737s to fly multiple teams across North America, cause you did all this realignment for football?
@@adzisme Mountain West teams not likely to move to the Pac 4 at this point. MWC has very expensive exit fees for its member schools, and the Pac 4 doesn't have a TV contract to bring in any revenue. Life long OSU Beaver fan here, and sorry to say, the Pac is toast. One more comment, it was the 12 school administrators who allowed Larry Scott to muck everything up, so ultimately they are to blame. Eight have bailed out, four remain to reap the consequences.
Absolutely! Dollars make all the decisions for these schools. If Stanford and Cal want to focus on academics and drop down to the Mountain West, I don't see that being a bad thing. There are plenty of schools that do not have to be known for football or basketball
@@Skzzlemister Stanford does have a somewhat recent history of success in Football and Men’s Basketball. Both Cal and Stanford have excellent Academic reputations. The Big Ten, or whatever it will be called, is going to have scheduling issues it will have to work out.
Furd already rejected that, seeing the Big 12 as not meeting a high enough level academically. Absent a Big Ten invite in the next few years, they are likely to be an Independent.
Honestly, OSU and WSU would be better fits for the Big12. Yes, their alumni bases are smaller than the Bay Area schools, but their fan base is more rabid (believe me, I lived in the Bay Area and not many people there cared about college athletics). Large portions of the WSU & OSU alumni base live in Seattle (no. 12 TV market) and Portland (no. 22 TV market) so there would be lots of eyes in those markets watching Big12 sports that probably don't now.
I honestly believe George and Larry are secretly being paid by the BIG10 and BIG12 to give them teams. There's no way a commissioner and a conference can make all these mistakes without doing it on purpose 😂.
USC fan since 1980. Sad to see what appears to be the demise of a conference that has endured for over a century and won so many championships, produced so many great athletes and so many great memories. Greed and mismanagement seem to play a large part here. Excellent report, I will be curious to see how the Rose Bowl deals with this. College football will of course endure and remain popular but I can't help but feel we lost something here maybe not innocence but naivete.
Rose Bowl? Unless it’s the national championship game it will be the #2 B10 vs probably the #2 XII. It’s the powerhouse game. The SEC has the Sugar and ACC has Orange. It will remain the B10 game…and a more at large opponent. But the Fiesta bowl isn’t as important so….
Thanks for this simple explanation. I’m from New Zealand and have little knowledge of the conference system in the USA but this gave me a great breakdown of what happened/is happening here. Thanks!
Very commendable for Channel 7 news in San Francisco to devote the amount of time they did to the collapse of the Pac-12; as local TV news is notorious for allocating two-minutes-45-seconds for any package of local relevance, no matter how complex the issue is.
He was great - we need more of that type of passion back in college football, not less. I'm not a Pac-12 fan, but being a college football fan, this is still a very sad thing.
@D.Wagner2 success in sports is cyclical. Obviously success isn't even as some universities prioritize athletics more. It's a lot more likely for Stanford or California to be successful on the field than Oregon successful in the classroom.
@Taylors_Tunes how is it arrogance wanting cal and Stanford over NW schools? USC has a long history against those schools. I also actually care about academics. Washington is a top 50 school but Oregon doesn't even crack the top 100
lifelong ohio native here and buckeye fan for 50 years. when i was a kid, the big 10's biggest rival was always the pac. yes, i remember we struggled in the rose bowl and in regular season against you guys, but it was a rivalry. i can remember how sweet the 79 season was, we came back at ucla and won, had a perfect season........and lost by 1 (!) to charles white and usc. i thought it was crazy enough we brought in rutgers and maryland (?), but now? usc and ucla? oregon and washington? wtf? this guy larry beil is a gem, he hit the nail on the head. oh, and football playoffs keep expanding......will probably stop watching in a year or 2.
Mrmattmoose. Grew up with ohio teams as well. However, sadly, today college sports is all about money for the schools and exposure and experience for the players to get to the pro teams. So it's going to continue for the big10 since that conference wants to be the first national athletic conference that has exposure to the most major television market cities. So now that the big10 has secured the east coast to the west coast markets, the big 10 conference is going to try to secure some southern college teams in major city markets to complete the big 10 national presence. They have 3 teams in their sights. Florida state or Miami, north Carolina and Georgia tech. If they got those , then they would have the major city markets in atlanta, charlotte/ Winston Salem and miami/ Tallahassee. Those markets would bring the big 10 hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising markets..... And money is the key player in college sports like football. Peace.
No connection to the bay area whatsoever, but Larry says what every other sports reporter needs to be saying about all this PAC12 stuff. Masterful job, not out of line at all, and you can hear the passion for the sport in his comments. Well done
The ones going to Big 12 won’t be as impacted, especially Colorado, as they have Big 12 teams already in a neighboring state to begin with in Kansas & Kansas St
Colorado shouldn't have left the Big 12 in the first place. They had great rivalries with teams from that conference dating back to the Big 8 days. (Though I realize some of those teams have long since left the Big 12...it's so hard to keep track anymore)
Arizona is in good shape for travel too. Texas Tech is fairly close, and the miles traveled is very similar to traveling in the Pac-12. However, those trips to the eastern time zone are going to be tough.
The real question is why Cal and Stanford with ALL their professors on campus ..could not see this coming!!! All you needed was a high school education to see what was going on! You stuck your nose up at expanding with Fresno St, San Diego St and Boise St to pitch better football and get a good media deal ..and it all bit you in the ass!!!
None of the schools you mentioned would have saved the Pac at the payout currently paid. Fun fact: when the Mountain West schools first broke off from the old WAC, they scored a TV contract paying $7 million per school per year. They now get paid $4 million per, though Boise is said to be paid a little more. And if you have the CBS Sports Network cable channel, you can watch them. We can have the philosophical discussion on whether allowing Texas to keep the Longhorn Network would have actually got Texas to join the Pac. That would have got the Pac a competitive payday. There have been comments out of Austin over time from people who claim that Texas either only entertained the Pac to get the b12 to increase their share, or as the main columnist at the time wrote, they chose to “look east.” We’ll never really know. Maybe Oklahoma? Maybe not? The time zone might be problem 1A, and Pac schools mostly being in pro markets might be 1B. But even the b12 decided that recruiting in Orlando was a better deal than recruiting in Boise.
We live in a world that instead of fighting to make your situation better we take the route of going where the grass is greener. Makes no sense just in travel scenarios alone. This will backfire because its stupid and done so hastily over what? More money? The root of all evil is the love of money.
Perhaps but the PAC-12 had the chance to add Big 12 schools twice, but turned their noses up at the chance. Now the PAC 12 is dying. Karma? No, just bad decisions by the people at the top - commissioners and presidents.
Right on target. I wish ALL of our news was reported like Larry Beil just did. But alas, that kind of honesty requires courage in reporting the facts with veracity.
Sounds like the ultimate blame has to go to the university presidents/chancellors who hired the last two league commissioners. They apparently used the wrong criteria in not insisting that the league presidents have university sports backgrounds with established contacts. It's likely that the remaining four schools in the next off-season, will see a wave of coaches resignations and players using the transfer portal. It's disappointing for us fans, but must be heart breaking for the players and coaches who have invested their efforts and dreams into these schools.
I lived in the Bay Area for a couple of years and I met 2 people who cared about college football and they only cared about the Cal/Stanford game because they were alumni. The PAC12 was USC, UCLA & everyone else (except in basketball where Arizona is relevant nationally).
They had the opportunity to add Texas and Oklahoma and blew it. The bad hiring of commissioners was not very good. Pac Twelve Conference should've been there with SEC and Big Ten. They're not even in decisions anymore. They have done it to themselves, and soon to follow will be the ACC Conference.
